Did you know Google processes close to 40000 search queries every second? Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines have billions of searches worldwide on a huge range of different terms every month. We have free access to one of the most powerful marketing tools, which is beyond incredible! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a stand-alone marketing strategy. It is an essential part of the bigger picture. And if we take a look at the full picture, then SEO and customer journey must go together to achieve a common objective.
How to Use the Power of SEO to Enhance the Customer Journey
A search engine is one of the first touchpoints in the customer journey where people discover and research brands. Search engine optimization is an ongoing practice of enhancing search visibility, boosting traffic, and improving customer experiences. If you are unsure how your customers interact with you, chances are you’re missing out on a significant amount of leads and sales.
Understanding the basics of customer journeys will help leverage the power of SEO better.
Stages in a Customer Journey
The name customer journey is a bit misleading as it suggests that it starts after a visitor becomes your customer, but that is not the case—your audiences’ every interaction with your company counts.
The stages in the customer journey represent touchpoints between your company and your entire audience. Because the “journey” can vary from consumer to consumer, knowing their personalized journey is essential for marketers seeking to deliver a superior experience. The main stages include:
- This starts when the customer first becomes aware of the company or product.
- This stage comes after the customer has become aware of the company or product. The customer will consider whether or not to make a purchase, but they may not be ready to commit yet.
- In this stage, the customer makes a purchase decision and commits to an actual purchase.
- Post-purchase. The customer uses your product or service and has an experience with it that either reinforces their positive feelings about it or causes them to have negative feelings about it.
Understanding where your users/customers are coming from, their motivations for using your product, and how they will be engaging with it regularly in the future will help map the customer journey effectively.
So how can SEO help in producing a better customer journey? Read below for more insights on each stage.
Awareness Stage
When a person is looking for a solution, they search for their answers online. The search engine results page will fetch the most relevant websites organically. Matching keywords throughout your pages with what your users might want to search for is called high intent keywords. High-intent keywords will improve your SEO and positively impact your brand’s discovery and visitor’s journey. Matching keywords are particularly important for those who have a product-based website.
For example, If someone is searching for the “best place to buy shoes” and you are one of many places that come up in the search results, you will likely be able to capture their attention and convince them to click through to your site.
Zero Click Searches
Sometimes, there are cases when the person does not click any website from the search results page. They would have mostly got their answers through a featured snippet which will also help build brand awareness. Featured snippets are excerpts from a web page that search engines consider the most relevant solution to a user’s query. It generally takes up the “position 0” on the SERP page.
Consideration Stage
People looking for a product or service may not be ready to buy it immediately. To capture the attention of these potential customers, you must be one of the top results for searches related to your industry.
Optimizing your website content to answer your users’ concerns is the best way to impact your customers at this stage. Regularly creating videos and textual content that can address any conversion block will keep you at the top of the organic search results. For example, if you sell breakfast bars that are sugar-free and healthy, you could focus on answering questions like:
- are breakfast bars healthy?
- are breakfast bars suitable for kids?
- do breakfast bars increase metabolism?
This SEO technique of creating content around keywords and questions people frequently search for will solve many issues and ease your potential customers to the next stage in the customer journey.
Tackling Comparisons
People are spoilt with choices, especially when searching for something online and comparing your brand with others. That is when a robust SEO strategy will help you stand out.
It is possible to answer comparison searches on your site by providing information on your brand’s benefits, pricing, and customer support. Developing content that directly compares the brands is also helpful for SEO. Creating backlinks, another part of SEO best practices, is vital in building trust with potential customers.
Decision Stage
SEO can help in the decision stage in the customer journey by providing information about the product and services. Optimizing the website for search engines makes it easy for your customers to find relevant details on your product which will help them make an informed decision. SEO can also help in the decision stage in the customer journey by providing reviews from previous customers.
Post Purchase Stage
The customer journey does not end with the purchase: the after-sales support will significantly help improve the credibility of your brand. SEO is vital in this stage, as customers don’t always go to the company website directly. They will still ask their questions in the search engine—an excellent post-purchase FAQ section will help customers have a smoother experience. The reviews are another factor to consider when looking to develop future customers. Make sure your Google My Business page, one of the most visited websites, has reviews to improve the customer experience
SEO is one of the most important factors when building a solid customer journey map. If you also want to know how you can improve your customer experience using SEO, the business app from Assist 90 is what you need. Based in Chesterfield, MO, we provide businesses with full-stack digital marketing services. Call (314) 560-5649 or click here today to get a free SEO audit report.
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